Wendy Doniger: Complaints about her profile posted at Wikipedia.org

[Peter Gottschalk is Associate Professor, Wesleyan University.]

Wikipedia.org has been usurped to impugn specific scholars and Hindu
studies in the US in general, omitting the far larger context of the
work by both individuals and the scholarly community. In particular,
Wikipedia's entry on Wendy Doniger defines and rejects her work almost
entirely within a frame of hurt Hindu sensibilities, an entry on Jeff
Kripal defines him only in regard to allegations and controversy
surrounding Kali's Child, and the entry for"Hinduism in the United
States" simply dismisses all scholarship for its supposed shoddiness.

Considering the unfortunately high reliance on this source of so many
of our students and, perhaps, many members of the public, it would
behoove those of us who would care to offer counter-perspectives.
Certainly hurt sensibilities and controversial scholarship merit
attention, however, they do not merit all the attention in entries supposedly about individuals.
For those who don't know, Wikipedia is a very popular information
database developed collaboratively by its users.

The article on Wendy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Doniger)
begins with some basic background on her, listing academic affiliations
and works, but without any broad perspective on her work or its general
significance. The text then moves to longer criticisms that reference" critiques" and"objections" deriving only from Rajiv Malhotra and
Sankrant Sanu. The external links portion shows a bit more balance,
but most of the sources are negative, three being written by Malhotra
and Sanu. The entry itself offers only the shortest of responses of
Wendy to her critics. Many mistakes lace the list of her works.

The article on Jeff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffery_Kripal),
except for a reference to his position at Rice, defines him entirely by
his work Kali's Child, omitting everything else of his scholarship. At
least Jeff's response to one of his critics, Swami Tyagananda, is
included, although this is countered by a criticism from Malhotra.

Meanwhile, within its entry"Hinduism in the United States"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism_in_the_United_States), Wikipedia
offers this under the subtitle"Scholarship":"Hinduism studies in
American Universities has been under the spotlight recently for it's
shoddy scholarship. With the increasing Hindu population in the
country, gross errors & misrepresentations that may have passed through
easily before are being caught and highlighted. An influential figure
in the academy, Wendy Doniger, Professor of History of Religions,
University of Chicago, has come under severe criticism for her work and
that of her students.""Shoddy scholarship" has a link to a Sanu piece and"students"
to Malhotra's"Wendy's Child Syndrome."

Answers.com, another online database, posts the Wikipedia all these
entries in their entirety.

If you'd like to participate in the editing of the entry and are
unfamiliar with how this works (as was I until today), you can find
answers at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction

Personally, I plan on complaining to the organizers of Wikipedia that
they can allow such one-sided entries about scholars (or any
individuals) without any apparent effort at balance.

Wikipedia recognizes the problems with its project, which has led to
erroneous and damaging claims about individuals being posted in its
entries. It addresses these at
http://en.wikipedia.org